Tuesday, June 30, 2009

interruption: techie help

hi friends... er, especially friends with Techie husbands....

I need help!

My laptop internet is skiwampus.

I have a router, and have two desktops plugged into it, and am having no problems with them.

I have redone my laptop, and am still having internet trouble.

It started about a week ago... I assumed it was drivers that I needed from an overnight windows update. But I've redone windows, and updated all my drivers.

I read that if it's your wireless card, you'll get a connection for a few minutes, but then it will cut out after five minutes or so.

But if I'm in the same room as my router, or on either patio (both are near the router), then I have no problems being disconnected, even after extended periods of time.
In the kitchen I get interrupted often (about twenty feet from router) and in the livingroom I can hardly get service at all.

Can anyone help me?
I don't believe my linksys router has channels, and I've reset my router and modem a few times... it doesn't help. (I've powered off and reset.) The wlan light on the router says it's on.

My laptop is exactly two years old, and I didn't have a problem until all-of-a-sudden a week ago.
I don't know if interference is possible, as I'm not getting many other of the usual "connections" show up in "connect to a network".
We don't have cordless phones, satellite, or a microwave.

I'm willing to replace either my card or router, but would hate to guess the wrong one and not be able to take it back, or in the case of a router, reprogram my laptop and desktops, and have that not be it.

Anyone know anything about wlan cards that go bad??? What the symptoms are?

:/
squeak. help.

Oh - and after I get this figured out, I'll be deleting this post. :)

7 comments:

  1. Mike will be off at the hospital any minute now, do you want me to have him call you?
    It sounds like a problem we had a while back.

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  2. Hmmm. Wish I could help. That's exactly the set-up we have, with two desktops hooked to the router and my wireless laptop, but we just started doing it this way, so no problems yet. I hope someone can help you.

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  3. I will have my husband read this right away.... he is the family go to guy for all things computerish.

    He helped my sister with her laptop as well....

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  4. Is your laptop a dell? I had so many probs like this with my last 3 laptops. We never could figure out what was wrong, but it was a slow decline. Well, we just don't buy Dells anymore. I have no help, just a severe dislike for Dell.

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  5. K- yeah, it's a dell.
    I love Dell!

    I have to love a company that will replace a motherboard when you spill your beer on it. :/ (not the current problem, that was over a year ago.)

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  6. I'm wondering if it's my att dsl... I've had to connect with the ip address twice now in the last week to get back online) but that doesn't explain why usually no other "Connections" are available in my "Connect to Network" box now-- and certainly I cannot get connected to them, even the Unsecured ones. (I just get the message "WIndows cannot connect to this server....")

    Seems like something is disconnecting, and possibly affecting the modem and router???

    ReplyDelete
  7. Wow! They were of no help to us. Just said it was not under warranty. None of my lap tops made it past 4 years old. The last one the hard drive failed at age 3. Grrr... I am currently loving a Mac right now. I am sure you'll get yours straightened out!

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Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts!